Confirmed with Link: Don Granato Thread -- Signed to Contract Extension

[MeenOlViks]

What about Garden Gloves

Its just soo hard to top Ralph

 

[TageGod]

Why engage in discussion when you have already decided that if anyone elses opinion differs from yours, they just don't watch and are flaming you by bringing up stats?

When did I say people who bring up stats are flaming? There are people who come on here just to complain about the team and argue anyone who provides any statement supporting anything about the team.

 

[Mattilaus]

When did I say people who bring up stats are flaming? There are people who come on here just to complain about the team and argue anyone who provides any statement supporting anything about the team.

Maybe I misinterpreted you saying "I watch the game, not type on my phone during them" as a response to a perfectly valid argument for the teams performance. If I did that is on me and I apologize but you may want to reevaluate your response if you typed that with the hopes of getting meaningful discussion from anyone.

Back on topic, the team has shown to be lacking when it comes to in-game adjustment and motivation (they never seem read at puck drop). They have been better lately but that's the same story as the last however many years of them looming decent when the season has already been lost. This is a coach issue. I am all aboard the lindy train. He would bring an air of respectability and his only real crime in NJ was not having a goaltender. If NJ had the goaltending we do this year they'd be in a divisional spot.

 

[TageGod]

Maybe I misinterpreted you saying "I watch the game, not type on my phone during them" as a response to a perfectly valid argument for the teams performance. If I did that is on me and I apologize but you may want to reevaluate your response if you typed that with the hopes of getting meaningful discussion from anyone.

Back on topic, the team has shown to be lacking when it comes to in-game adjustment and motivation (they never seem read at puck drop). They have been better lately but that's the same story as the last however many years of them looming decent when the season has already been lost. This is a coach issue. I am all aboard the lindy train. He would bring an air of respectability and his only real crime in NJ was not having a goaltender. If NJ had the goaltending we do this year they'd be in a divisional spot.

That was simply to say why I am not active on the GDT. I comment post game instead of during the game.

Puck drop is a huge issue for this team. Get that first goal, or be ahead after two, this team is excellent. I am not quite on the train yet, if you told me a big name shook loose I would be fine with it. Not sure I really want Lindy though.

 

[Gabrielor]

Fire this joker. It’s over.

 

[Ace]

I’m like 75 percent sure I saw Lindy and his wife taking in a movie with friends today at the Transit Regal. That’s not even a joke. Of course, it occurred to me he lives here in the off-season and….well…he’s on a permanent off-season. Plus it would mean he was so disinterested in Sabres stuff that he was taking in a 6 o’clock movie with an 8 o’clock faceoff. They were all dressed nice so I wondered if they were coming from or going to Salvatore’s or something.

Anyway that’s the only coach in Buffalo that deserves any attention atm.

 

[CaliSabresfan24]

There is no way he can be behind the bench to start next season...

KA really didn't help with the roster structure either but Donny clearly can't get the boys motivated. Not to mention the lineups have been becoming more and more sus every game.

He's done a good job developing the kids but he can't get them to play like a playoff team.

 

[Chainshot]

Still think he should've been sacked after that Columbus game. And his staff still sucks.

 

[sabremike]

He's turned into Kreuger v2.0.

 

[Chainshot]

He's turned into Kreuger v2.0.

Nah, the team is playing the same silly way. They try to blow the zone early. They don't hit. They aren't really supporting their defense. They don't forecheck or take the body with regularity. They don't drive the net. All the same shit from last year and earlier this year. I don't see a big difference, even if Tweets say otherwise.

 

[sabremike]

Nah, the team is playing the same silly way. They try to blow the zone early. They don't hit. They aren't really supporting their defense. They don't forecheck or take the body with regularity. They don't drive the net. All the same shit from last year and earlier this year. I don't see a big difference, even if Tweets say otherwise.

It's not just dumb luck that's caused their goalscoring to fall off a cliff at close to historic levels.

 

[Chainshot]

It's not just dumb luck that's caused their goalscoring to fall off a cliff at close to historic levels.

I would say there is plenty of dumb play, perhaps even more than before. No one was going to the net and now? Still no one going to the net. Forecheck? Nah. Cycle? Nope. Skate fast into the corner or curl back to the blueline has been ALL YEAR. This isn't new. This is a team without the urgency to get inside and a staff that has no answer to make them go there OR doesn't care that they don't go there because they are asking for other things. That's been like that for the entire time Granato has been coach. He didn't flip a switch and start doing something radically different. These are their flaws, fully and completely obvious in light of any scrutiny.

 

[toddkaz]

Don Granato gets this team to play for the last 3-4 minutes of most games.

What are they doing for the other 55-57 minutes?

Granato, Krueger and Garden Gloves...3 worst NHL coaches ever.

I would say there is plenty of dumb play, perhaps even more than before. No one was going to the net and now? Still no one going to the net. Forecheck? Nah. Cycle? Nope. Skate fast into the corner or curl back to the blueline has been ALL YEAR. This isn't new. This is a team without the urgency to get inside and a staff that has no answer to make them go there OR doesn't care that they don't go there because they are asking for other things. That's been like that for the entire time Granato has been coach. He didn't flip a switch and start doing something radically different. These are their flaws, fully and completely obvious in light of any scrutiny.

My favorite is instead of dump and chase its dump and one man chase.

Its pathetic.

 

[Fjordy]

Fire

 

[Ace]

I'm putting this in the coaching thread because it is where it belongs



His head must be spinning at how bad the coaching is around here. His exit interview, as the only outside eyes coming into the Granato disaster, will be the only interesesting and honest one Adams hears.

 

[HogtownSabresfan]

Granato's post-games are my favourite thing. He is truly delusional. Last night, he talked about how the penalty was working well until they scored. In a league based on success, he is playing for moral victories. He's really a joke but because he came after Krueger people are okay.

 

[Ace]

Granato's post-games are my favourite thing. He is truly delusional. Last night, he talked about how the penalty was working well until they scored. In a league based on success, he is playing for moral victories. He's really a joke but because he came after Krueger people are okay.

He also looked to credit them for keeping the game close and just needing a couple more goals to go for them.

He's been here for three seasons. He's the sixth longest tenured coach in the league. He's out there taking positives in keeping it close in a game they lost by 2.

I don't know if there has ever been a bigger disparity between coach who needs to be fired and odds they won't be.

 

[MOGlLNY]

Don really does seem lost. Doesn’t even seem or sound like the same guy of the last 3 seasons.

 

[Caroline Says ll]

It was glaringly obvious in the first 10 games how lost this team was. Yet, still in December Granato was on record with saying he doesn't want to overwhelm players with tape and structure as it makes them stuck in the mud.

Now here we are in March and everything is the exact same. We tried nothing this year and now this is truly a wasted season. If anything cementing players with no structure or system is just going to be harder to brake habits next year if the coaches even change

 

[Chainshot]

Since we're stuck with him, I can only hope they decide to dig deeper into finding an assistant for the defense who isn't just one of Granato's old minor-league hockey bros. I want to say I don't want them to dip into some sort of old Sabres alumni but I wouldn't mind McKee getting a shot with the work he's done in the OHL and James Patrick is the other. I would like the guy to NOT be an alumni and certainly not yet another part of the incestuous NDTP/Columbus Chill bullshittery.

They are pushing so many chips into their blueline, get some people to bring those players forward. When only one guy progresses for the season and that might be attributable to finally being over his concussion issue.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

Is anyone able to compare the mistakes that Krueger made with mistakes that Granato is making? It seems like Granato may even be worse, but since he promotes a style that's more fun to watch, he gets a longer leash.

I hate to comment on coaching quality, since I barely know what a coach even does, but gee whiz the evidence sure is piling up to the sun here.

I will say, he does seem like a great assistant coach.

 

[toddkaz]

Is anyone able to compare the mistakes that Krueger made with mistakes that Granato is making? It seems like Granato may even be worse, but since he promotes a style that's more fun to watch, he gets a longer leash.

I hate to comment on coaching quality, since I barely know what a coach even does, but gee whiz the evidence sure is piling up to the sun here.

I will say, he does seem like a great assistant coach.

I think its a hybrid of Garden Gloves and Kreuger. I remember the human centipede under Rolston. I have seen the same thing multiple times under Donny.

If you even watch last night Byram especially on the power play he is skating around bumping into our own players because the PP game plan is non-existent. He is rotating around which should be a natural movement for hockey players and his teammate just stands there and Byram runs into him.

Its just awful hockey. What play is this? Byram from the point skated in and passed it to the player in the corner. He continued at the net which is a natural movement but the other Buffalo player should have rotated back to the point. Instead he just stands there and Byram runs into him.

In the screenshot you can see Byram puts up his stick and gently crosschecks the Buffalo player. I am guessing because he thought his own player would rotate out of his position back to the point to cover Byram but instead he just stood there.

 

[Sabresfansince1980]

It's been a static connect-the-dots PP for a long time. It plays like NHL 94 on Sega, which I was pretty good at, but not so much in the NHL today.

 

[MOGlLNY]

Since we're stuck with him, I can only hope they decide to dig deeper into finding an assistant for the defense who isn't just one of Granato's old minor-league hockey bros. I want to say I don't want them to dip into some sort of old Sabres alumni but I wouldn't mind McKee getting a shot with the work he's done in the OHL and James Patrick is the other. I would like the guy to NOT be an alumni and certainly not yet another part of the incestuous NDTP/Columbus Chill bullshittery.

They are pushing so many chips into their blueline, get some people to bring those players forward. When only one guy progresses for the season and that might be attributable to finally being over his concussion issue.

New assistants and Lindy as a front office advisor to help.

 

[Chainshot]

Is anyone able to compare the mistakes that Krueger made with mistakes that Granato is making? It seems like Granato may even be worse, but since he promotes a style that's more fun to watch, he gets a longer leash.

I hate to comment on coaching quality, since I barely know what a coach even does, but gee whiz the evidence sure is piling up to the sun here.

I will say, he does seem like a great assistant coach.

For me, Ralph's key failing was neutering his blueline. It was a directive - and he would cut ice time if they violated it - to not attack, not pinch, not leave the blueline. AND he had his defensemen playing really wide which tended to open up the most dangerous part of the ice (the middle) rather than denying it. Considering the team had assembled a group of PMD's, including a couple of guys best used as rovers in early Dahlin and Montour to completely hobble what they are good at was shocking. That's not something I see Granato doing.

Granato's defense tend to be pretty active and if anything, his forwards blowing the zone early is way more akin to what they were doing when Abysmal was their HC. Think back to the times when there are graphics of Risto, under forechecking pressure as the only skater in frame in his own zone because he was supposed to get the puck up the ice cleanly to all of the forwards. He wasn't able to because it's hard to do at the NHL level. And instead of bringing people back deeper, it was stretch-pass city. I see way too much of that out of the current Granato group as the forwards are constantly cheating for offense. The wingers don't have to come back deep and there are clearly times when they rotate who is supposed to be the defending forward when who is the hot player in that situation is confused. Two guys come back or no one comes back.

Krueger wanted to grind and chip and chase from what I remember of his offensive plan and he wanted the forwards to do that without blueline support. I'm not sure what pre-Red Kelly hockey coaching guide he got that from but it is not NHL in it's origins. Granato is much more about pressing the attack and moving the puck. What seems to have broken down is that the important area to take shots from, the "home plate" area that Marty will show in intermissions, is somewhere the players are passing or moving away from. Is that the players? Is that the coaches being unable to get through to the players to do that? I think it's a bit of both. It drives me nuts because it's another lack of basic hockey.

Rolston's teams looked like the most unprepared team until Housley took over. I didn't think anyone could have a team that under-prepared again and now we see this team not disorganized but sleeping through the opening frame over and over. I've heard players talk about how Housley's teams had something in excess of 60 breakouts for the players to memorize. And if one guy went to the wrong spot? Transition ended. I'm not seeing that exactly, but I do see blueline hanging and a lack of commitment to be on the right side of the puck. And there are people who will say that being on the right side of the puck does inhibit scoring somehow. I would point out that Tampa is on the right side of the puck. Florida is on the right side of the puck. The Colorado Avalanche are playing on the right side of the puck. It can be done, but hey, it requires WORK and perhaps discomfort or even PAIN to make the right play and this team is not held to that standard.

Don's gotten results out of a bunch of guys who were crushed in their development, including one they just traded. But they don't need that now, they need to bring out things that are missing and still missing and that is going to require someone who DEMANDS they play the right way and enough players willing to do so to pull the rest into that stylistically.